Leo Jon Otho was upset. It was another day of the same thing. Out of work again, he started to know what the day of the week was when he remembered what he watched the night before of TV.

Leo did not like this sign of redundancy from the employment rolls. He did maintain a proper sleep schedule, the same time 7 days a week, going to sleep and waking up on schedule.

Leo walked around town most of the time, weather permitting. He was surprised and upset by a sign advertising apartments in town with one-bedroom apartments starting at $4100. Being across the river from a metropolis the high cost of living was somewhat expected.

In Leo’s case, it was all in the timing. He moved to town about 40 years ago. The entire town was different. There was an arts vibe, with artists, musicians, actors, writers, film directors, and the like. It was only a matter of time before the lure of the metropolis drew young people who may have overheard Leo saying it was a great place to live.

Maybe it was destiny. When Leo and his crowd were running all over town, the economy subtly improved. Where that crowd saw the beauty of decay, other interests, some born and raised and some speculators from elsewhere saw things to be torn down and replaced by bright and shiny buildings.

Mom and Pop stores, and funky boutiques were to be overtaken by stores that people were comfortable with in the suburbs and brought to town as commercial creature comforts. The cash-in of the Gold Coast proved to be inevitable.

The way things used to be when people got married, if they had kids they would usually move to the suburbs and raise their children in a free range environment. Loyang Marthe and ET Jams Ramos did that, married, had kids, moved to the suburbs, and then came back to the delight of everyone.

ET Jams Ramos had a resurgence in the cultured field he had plowed for so long. It seemed like there was always a gentleman farmer, always busy, always contributing, always creating.

Leo did not see Loyang Marthe that often. They both enjoy each other’s company but circumstances and going through their lives limited their encounters.

Leo kept himself occupied as much as possible. Sometimes he succeeded and sometimes his arm got tired. So many streaming services compete for Leo’s attention and Leo watches his own creature comforts of TV shows he watched when he was growing up.

The neighbors in Leo’s building were nice. Not very loud and not very noticeable. Non-descript would be an apt word to describe them, Leo thought. He didn’t mean it as an insult but rather a description of people who really don’t interact with other building dwellers.

Leo was drawing from memories of the building’s tenants who were friends, if not friendly. But that was the 20th century and here Leo Jon Otho was in the 21st century, at wit’s end.
Or perhaps, better yet, wit’s beginning.